We have a busy week this week, including much-anticipated plans for a long weekend in upstate New York, so we only have a few recipes on our weekly menu. Nevertheless, we ended last week and started this week in spectacular fashion.

Last week, we posted a recipe for Real Simple’s Polenta Bake with Shrimp, which we planned to have Friday night. Friday rolled around and we both just wanted to take it easy, so we decided to order in and make the shrimp on Saturday night instead. (Our planned trip to visit the Studio Museum in Harlem and Red Rooster on Saturday didn’t materialize because we’re waiting for the museum to get the catalog for the Alma Thomas exhibit we saw a few weeks ago.) Kim took the lead on making the dish, which was very easy. The polenta came together without too much effort and the shrimp took no time at all to cook under the broiler. Kim tweaked the recipe a bit by using some smoked paprika, which gave it a nice kick, as did the smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce we added.

We have a big day of cooking planned today (Sunday). We started with Raisin Challah French Toast, using a mash-up of recipes, one for the sugar-cinnamon-nutmeg mix that went into the custard and one for the custard itself. Tony is not a big fan of raisins in food (His scale is: cookies = fine; other baked goods = OK, maybe once in a while, if I have to; salads, meat dishes, etc = I would rather starve to death or possibly even eat dirt), but he was willing to give the challah bread a try. The French toast came our pretty perfectly–a little crispy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside.

The Sunday cooking won’t end there. Tony plans on making Saveur’s Umbrian Vegetable Soup (Zuppa di Verdure All’agliata) during the afternoon, which will add to our stock (no pun intended) of tasty soups in the fridge, which includes Real Simple’s Sausage, Lentil, and Kale Soup, which we made last week. The soup will also have the added benefit of warming up the apartment and making it smell awesome.

Sunday dinner will be a combination of a very simple dish (roasted chicken; no recipe required) and a more complicated one: Saveur’s Lentil Salad with Beets and Pomegranate. The plan for this dinner started with the salad, which was attractive because it features ingredients that are not only delicious but also very photogenic; Tony has some new camera equipment that he wants to try out! We should have enough leftovers to get a second dinner on Wednesday for our efforts.

Kim will be out with her friend Sharon on Monday, so Tony will be on his own. We have a really simple recipe planned for Tuesday, namely Real Simple’s Roasted Salmon and Brussels Sprouts. This very satisfying dish should only take about 40 minutes to make, perfect for a weeknight.

We’ll order in on Thursday so that we have more time to pack for our trip to upstate New York. We’ll head up on Friday morning and make a stop in the town of Rhinebeck for lunch at the Calico Restaurant, followed by a bit of wandering around town. We’ll head up to Hudson, New York, where we will spend the rest of our trip, later in the afternoon. We have a dinner reservation for Friday night at a new restaurant, Wm. Farmer and Sons, and for Saturday night at one of our favorite places in Hudson: Swoon Kitchenbar. When we’re not busy eating dinner we’ll be visiting all the fun shops in town, plus the farmer’s market, taking photos of the beautiful views of the Hudson River at the west end of town, and relaxing.